The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [326]
As Philip walked around, he was watched by dozens of half-open eyes, and greeted by several sleepy grunts. The stall holders would not leave their precious goods unguarded: most of them were sleeping at their stalls, and the wealthier merchants had left servants on guard.
He was not yet certain exactly how much money he would make from the fair, but it was virtually guaranteed to be a success, and he was confident of reaching his original estimate of fifty pounds. There had been moments, in the past few months, when he had feared that the fair would not take place at all. The civil war dragged on, with neither Stephen nor Maud gaining the upper hand, but his license had not been revoked. William Hamleigh had tried to sabotage the fair in various ways. He had told the sheriff to ban it, but the sheriff had asked for authority from one of the two rival monarchs, and it had not been forthcoming. William had forbidden his tenants to sell wool at Kingsbridge; but most of them were anyway in the habit of selling to merchants such as Aliena, rather than marketing the fleeces themselves, so the main effect of the ban was to create more business for her. Finally, he had announced that he was reducing the rents and duties at the Shiring Fleece Fair to the levels Philip was charging; but his announcement came too late to make much difference, for the big buyers and sellers had already made their plans.
Now, with the sky growing perceptibly lighter in the east on the morning of the big day, William could do no more. The sellers were here with their wares, and in a little while the buyers would begin to arrive. Philip thought William would find that in the end the Kingsbridge Fleece Fair damaged the Shiring fair less than he feared. Sales of wool seemed to go up every year without fail: there was enough business for two fairs anyway.
He had walked all the way around the close to the southwest corner, where the mills and the fishpond were. He stood there for a while, watching the water flow past the two silent mills. One was now used exclusively for felting cloth, and it made a lot of money. Young Jack was responsible for that. He had an ingenious mind. He was going to be a tremendous asset to the priory. He seemed to have settled quite well as a novice, although he tended to regard the services as a distraction from cathedral building, rather than the other way around. However, he would learn. The monastic life was a sanctifying influence. Philip thought God had a purpose for Jack. In the very back of Philip’s mind was a secret long-term hope: that one day Jack would take his place as prior of Kingsbridge.
Jack got up at dawn and slipped out of the dormitory before the service of prime to make one last inspection tour of the building site. The morning air was cool and clear, like pure water from a spring. It would be a warm, sunny day, good for business, good for the priory.
He walked around the cathedral walls, making sure that all the tools and work-in-progress were safely locked inside the lodges. Tom had built light wooden fences around the stockpiles of timber and stone, to guard the raw materials against accidental damage by careless or drunken visitors. They did not want any daredevils climbing the structure, so all the ladders were safely hidden away, the spiral staircases in the thickness of the walls were closed off with temporary doors, and the stepped ends of the part-built walls were obstructed by wooden blocks. Some of the master craftsmen would be patrolling the site throughout the day to make sure there was no damage.
Jack managed to skip quite a lot of the services, one way or another. There was always something to be done on site. He did not have his mother